


Eyes On You

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crossover, Horror, M/M, Monsters, Monstrous Fluff, Possessive Behavior, Screenplay/Script Format, Statement Fic, the beholding (the magnus archives) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22021249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Statement of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, regarding a bizarre encounter whilst walking home to a house called Brinkley Court. Original statement given 3rd August, 1927, transcribed by an archival assistant. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, on the 12th of January, 2019.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 30
Kudos: 115





	Eyes On You

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

This one's a bit... Weird.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(irritably)

Martin, if I might remind you—

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

Yeah, I know, but it's... I don't

know, it's a different sort of

weird.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Martin—

We hear the sound of rustling paper as the statement is

handed over, as well the quiet clatter of the tape recorder

against the table.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

(sighing)

I'm going, I'm going.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Thanks. Erm. (woodenly) Sweetheart.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

(splutters, then laughs)

Sweetheart? Is that what I am?

Sweetheart?

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(defensive)

Well, I don't know, what am I

supposed to—

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

You're not supposed to do

anything, but you're definitely not

supposed to call me sweetheart.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Well, I just thought—

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

Stop... I don't know, stop

overthinking it. (he pauses)

Honey.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Ugh.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

Yeah, exactly. (laughs softly) Jon,

it's fine. Do you want some more

tea?

**JONATHAN SIMS**

No, no, I'm alright. Thank you,

though.

We hear the door open, and then click closed behind Martin

as he leaves. Paper rustles as Jon draws the statement

closer to him, and the familiar click and whir of the tape

recorder begins to sound in the background.

Clearing his throat, the Archivist begins.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Let's see... Statement of Bertram

Wilberforce Wooster, regarding a

bizarre encounter whilst walking

home to a house called Brinkley

Court. Original statement given 3rd

August, 1927, transcribed by an

archival assistant. Audio recording by

Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, on

the 12th of January, 2019.

Statement begins.

The Archivist's voice changes as he begins to read. It

lightens somewhat in tone, becoming less serious and moving

to a slightly higher register, with more emphasis on various

words, and generally a fruitier execution.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Look, the thing is, I'm only here

because Honoria Glossop rather

strong-armed me into it, and she

has dreadfully strong arms. Do you

know her, Honoria? She's awfully

tall, built as though they had beef

hocks spare to pack in, and

dreadfully strong. The sort of

woman you can imagine throwing a

husband over her shoulder and

walking off with him, what?

So, here I am. I don't really

think, truth be told, that there

was anything awfully spooky about

the evening at all - true, I don't

remember actually drinking

anything, but that certainly

doesn't mean I didn't drink.

Someone might well have been

slipping me a few... And my hand,

well, it will be right as rain,

given a bit of time.

And Jeeves tells me all this

supernatural nonsense is rot, and

without meaning to impugn - if

impugn is the word I mean - the,

er, the official nature of this

Institute, if Jeeves says something

is rot, I am more than disinclined

to believe otherwise. Jeeves is

rather an expert at determining rot

from the alternative, in my

experience, whereas Honoria

Glossop—

Oh, dash it all. I suppose I ought

get to the meat of the thing, hm?

It was a party in Market Snodsbury,

which is a dreadful town occupied

by dreadful people, and ought not

be tread by anyone who wishes for a

nice time of it. It was a sort of

gala in the aftermath of the

village fete - this was the

Thursday before last - so we were

all under the canopies, wine was

drunk, frivolity was to be heard,

and so on.

I had just narrowly escaped an

engagement to this American lass by

the name of Flossy Handers. Dashed

dreadful name, no? Flossy. Imagine

being married to a girl called

Flossy. Oh, lovely girl, of course,

couldn't possibly say a word

against her - tall and willowy and

whatnot, in possession of both eyes

which were, I'm sure, of a

perfectly pleasant colour, et

cetera, but a chap does tire of

engagements to girls with funny

names, and this had been a narrow

escape, as my valet - Jeeves, of

course - had managed to affiance

her off to a Frenchman called

Guillaume. So, you know, I was

celebrating, but not with drink.

I was celebrating with Jeeves, you

see, rather than any of my friends

\- Tuppy, Gussy, Bingo, any of the

chaps - which meant I didn't really

need to drink, you know? One rather

goes without the social lubricant

when one's partner is sufficiently

lubricated in himself.

Gosh, that's a dashed funny turn of

phrase. Do you mind awfully if I

cross these things out and...? No?

Alright. Well, in any case, Jeeves

was teaching me to play this

Chinese game of strategy I'd not

had a go at before, and it was all

splendid fun, until Tuppy managed

to set one of the tents alight and

Jeeves had to rush away and act the

fire marshal, you know, but it set

off this whole chain of events.

Tuppy and his fiancée, Angela, they

were arguing away; Jeeves was doing

his best to soothe all the ruffled

feathers, and this dashed

policeman...

Well, in any case, it doesn't bally

well matter. I couldn't be bothered

with it all, and it wasn't yet dark

\- the skies were a sort of reddened

gold, and it was awfully mild, and

if truth be told, my presence alone

was actually ruffling several of

the feathers Jeeves was working to

unruffle - I hadn't actually done

anything, you understand, merely

that I'd avoided engagement with

several of the girls there, and you

know what girls can be like, let

alone their uncles, fathers,

relatives... And my relatives...

I said I would walk home. I

recollect most vividly that I was

entirely sober, because when I said

that I would walk back to Brinkley

Court - which wasn't so far, only a

little over a mile, with more than

enough light left in the day -

Jeeves took it upon himself to look

me over. We took respite from the

chaos beneath the shade of an aged

oak, and he crowded me back against

the wood. His voice can be ever so

soft, when it suits him.

He said, "I could drive you, you

know, sir. I would not have you

walk alone, unescorted, if you do

not wish to."

And I said, "But, Jeeves, you--

forgive me if I'm wrong, old fruit,

but you rather enjoy untangling

these situations, don't you? I

don't want to tear the morning

crossword out of your hands."

He laughed, a molasses-drizzle of

noise, and his knuckles brushed

delicately against the base of my

chin. "You would never dare, sir,"

he said, and kissed me - just a

quick peck. "You might take the

car, sir."

I-- Good heavens, I didn't mean

to... No, but you mustn't, you

mustn't say— What? Well, how ever

can I...?

Right. The statement. Very well.

Jeeves and I, erm, under the oak

tree.

We'd actually given some of the old

women a lift, and I couldn't

possibly justify taking the, ah,

the car. I shook my head, and I

sort of straightened his tie, and

said, "Don't worry a thing about

it, Jeeves. I'll bop off, put

myself to bed, and by the time

you've fixed all of this up, we

can..."

Ahem. So, it was determined that I

should walk home, you know, and

walk I did.

As I said, it's barely more than a

mile, and I've made that walk a

hundred times since I was a child.

I knew it back and forth, you know,

as well as I know the back of my

hand - although, truth be told,

I've never quite understood that

particular metaphor, because, well,

I don't know about you, but I don't

know that I could recognise the

back of my hand compared to the

backs of any other man's hand, so

how—

Right. Yes, the statement, Mr

Barrett, I'm dreadfully sorry, it

seems everything's sort of getting

away from me a bit.

Does it indeed?

Oh, well.

It was just... As I was walking, I

must have taken a wrong turning.

It's the only explanation, really.

Certainly, I knew the main paths

well enough about Market Snodsbury,

but not the woods as a whole, and

so I must have turned off the path

and gone down a different one

instead.

I remember the trees. They were...

Immensely tall. You know, I've seen

some bally tall trees in my life

time, here and there, but these,

they were rather like-- Have you

ever been to New York? You know

when you stand at the very foot of

a skyscraper and look up toward the

top, and you've to crane your head

back the whole of the way just to

glimpse the top, except that you

can't? Because it's just so far

over your head? I could see the

gaps in the canopy, but the leaves

were so far away as to be difficult

to distinguish from one another, as

though they all melded together, an

umbrella of green. The sun glinted

in through those little gaps, and I

could see the sky in between them,

but, ah...

It had darkened a bit, I suppose.

The skies had been a peachy pink

before, a warm colour, like apples

stewed in syrup, or the colour of

one of those shell lamps, where the

light comes through that warm red.

But now, it had become...

Redder. That is to say, more red. A

deeper colour, a darker colour, a

rich and unforgiving colour, a red

that you could get lost in. I

suppose I might say it was a red

the colour of blood, but blood, if

you really look at it, isn't all

that rich a colour when you first

spill it, you know? I'm a man prone

to accidents, and I see rather a

lot more of my blood than I wish I

did, so I'm accustomed to its

colour. It depends on where one is

cut, I suppose, because the blood

that's not very, ah, not very

oxygen-rich tends to be a darker

colour than the blood that is - my

man Jeeves tells me—

In any case, dark or light, the sky

was not the colour of blood. It was

the colour of a new, crisp apple,

the skin shiny and made in a mix of

shades, little flecks of green and

brown serving to make the colour

deeper, as though the whole sky

were the skin of some fruit so

massive I could scarcely conceive

of it.

It felt very old. Do you know what

it is I mean, when I say that? Some

places, you know, they just feel

dashed old. You feel the weight of

the history in them, you know,

history and, and time, and

what-not. Dashed old, it felt.

Older than— older than London, or

Britain, or... Or my Aunt Agatha.

She's quite old, you see.

I assumed I must have drank a little

without meaning to, or perhaps

knocked my head on a branch. Such

things have happened before, you

know, I'm dreadfully

accident-prone, and without Jeeves

to look after me, I often... The

paths meandered. Country paths

often do, but these meandered and

crossed over with one another, as

though they were trying to, to

cover all the ground.

It reminded me of veins. Of how

they crisscross through the flesh,

to bring blood all the way about,

some of them thicker than others,

I...

One night, you know, Jeeves pressed

his lips against my temple, had me

lean back against him, and traced

every vein in my chest, told me

which ways the blood flowed. I felt

dreadfully important, truth be

told, to feel that such a complex

array of little aqueducts kept the

old Wooster corpus up and running.

Those paths... They felt important.

As though they, too, allowed a

living thing to thrive, and they

felt so impossible to traverse, as

though I were going about in

circles - no matter which turning I

went down, I could see two or three

other paths right beside me, going

the same direction, and yet it

seemed as though none of them went

anywhere.

And I... Ahem. Well. All I could

think of was, ah, if it were like

veins, in that old, ancient wood,

then there wouldn't be an anywhere.

After all, unless I'm cut, my blood

doesn't flow anywhere outside of my

body, does it? Nor yours, or

anybody's.

I had begun to feel dreadfully

cold. Chilly, you know. And yet

when I looked up, the sky was still

red, the sun could not yet have

descended all the way down beneath

the horizon, and yet... I suppose

it didn't bother me as much as it

ought.

I began to tread a little faster. I

suppose I thought that were I to

rush a little along the way, that I

must find my way home eventually,

and that if I were to speed, I

should warm up a little bit, hm?

And then I ran a little faster.

Faster still. It continued in that

lilt until I was all but sprinting

down the path, taking little turns

here and there as I went, and yet

never seeming to get to anywhere

new, the trees seeming taller and

taller, the paths tighter and

tighter, and the undergrowth, too,

was growing, was thick all about

me, until I was all but crawling

through gorse and bramble bushes,

trying to slide between them as I

went down barely-trodden paths

half-overgrown with grass and

sweetheart and stinging nettles,

gosh, I was all but a sea of

wounds.

My hand?

Goodness, no, no, that isn't what

happened to my... No, all those

were little needle pricks and tiny

cuts - my forearms, my legs, my

chest. You must think it silly of

me to think, but it was almost as

though they were grabbing at me as

I went, and I--

It was so thick, and I had been

running for some time, my skin hot

and bruised and cut in places, my

heart rather pounding away as

though it were serving as rhythm

for a quickstep marching band, such

sweat on my skin that the salt

stung my new wounds. I was

agitated, and rather, ah, rather—

It all felt like a dream. Perhaps

that's what it was.

But I thought, well, if these paths

were veins, then this gorse, so

thick as it is, thicker and thicker

yet, must be the skin. When I got

to the wall of it, so thick that no

light came through, although I

could see the pricks and thorns,

the sharp leaves, I punched

through, with this hand.

It was as I tried to crawl through

the gap I'd made that something

grabbed the other.

I cannot begin to--

I know not how to describe it. It

was as though my hand had been

taken by a hand, but not a hand -

it touched me like a hand ought

have, mechanically. It seemed to

have a palm, and fingers, a wrist,

knuckles, and yet its very touch

was such impossible agony that I

screamed so loudly as to hurt my

throat. I was hoarse for weeks

afterward. It was as though the

hand had blades for knuckles and

bones, instead of whatever it is

bones are made of; it was as though

the skin was made of sandpaper or

broken glass or some other coarse

and cutting thing for which I do

not know the name; it was as if—

I don't recall, exactly, what went

on after that. I remember Jeeves

had my other hand, and pulled me by

it: I recall that I crashed against

his chest. I believe I was sobbing

\- my face was wet, but then, I was

wet all over, with sweat and with

blood, my suit sticking to me most

dreadfully. You know how a bit of

tissue will stick to your face,

when you are so foolish as to cut

yourself before the mirror glass?

My suit saw fit to do the same.

It was Jeeves that carried me back

to Brinkley Court. I was babbling,

making a lot of incoherent noise, I

don't remember what, precisely.

Jeeves put me in the bath, and

washed it all off me. It wasn't

just my blood, you see, it was...

It was nectar, and fruit, and...

Sorry. Makes me sort of sick to

recall.

He washed me clean, and bandaged my

wounds that required bandaging, my

hand included, and then he kept

vigil over me until the morning had

yielded to noon. He watches me

sometimes, you know. I don't even

know he's there, at times, but I

feel his gaze on the back of my

neck - you'd think it would be

dashed unpleasant, but it really

makes me feel safe more than

anything else. Nothing can happen

to me when Jeeves is watching, you

see. It wouldn't dare.

And that's all. That's... That's

what happened, you know. May I go?

Statement ends.

We hear the whir of the tape recorder for a few quiet

moments, and then the rustle of pages against one another as

the Archivist taps the papers against the base of the table,

straightening them.

When he begins to speak again, the Archivist has resumed his

usual cadence, although he coughs quietly and sounds

hesitant to resume.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Among the supplemental documents

there is a note about Mr Wooster

and his manservant, Reginald

Jeeves. They lived here in London,

but holidayed often at Brinkley

Court, as it was the home of Mr

Wooster's aunt, Dahlia Travers.

When followed up some time later,

Mr Wooster reported no lingering

ill effect from his encounter. Mr

Jeeves declined the Institute's

invitation for interview. Mr

Barrett, the man who transcribed

this statement, was presumably Iwan

Barrett, an archival assistant who

later became Head of the Institute,

James Wright's predecessor.

I suppose I might ask--

The Archivist is interrupted by a polite, neat knock on the

door, followed by the sound of it opening.

**ELIAS BOUCHARD**

(amused) You were going to call for

me, Jonathan?

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Do you think you're funny?

**ELIAS BOUCHARD**

It has been suggested that I can

be.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(sighs) This... Bertram

Wooster. You transcribed

his statement?

**ELIAS BOUCHARD**

Yes. Mr Wooster had been trapped by

some avatar, I believe, of the

Distortion, although I was never

able to get certain detail, at the

time.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Because of this... Jeeves? But he

didn't have any tattoos, he doesn't

appear in any statements. He was

just a man's butler.

**ELIAS BOUCHARD**

Not everyone's service to their

patron is the same, Jon. Just look at the differences between you and I.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Apparently not. Is he dead?

**ELIAS BOUCHARD**

Martin is waiting outside with a

cup of tea for you. I'll leave the

two of you to it, shall I?

The door opens and closes again, with the sound of shuffling

bodies. Martin makes a low sound of disapproval as Elias

goes.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(quietly, with slightly

stiff fondness) I said I

didn't want tea.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

Well, what my love doesn't want, he

gets. Wait, is that how it goes?

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Thank you, Martin.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

That thing he said, um, Wooster,

about the eyes in the back of his

neck?

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(abruptly more serious)

Don't tell me you feel

like that.

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

No, no, I do, but it's... Well,

it's like he says. You know. It's

nice.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

Nice?

**MARTIN BLACKWOOD**

Yeah. It doesn't feel like— Like

the Beholding's eyes, I guess. It

feels like yours.

There is another moment's silence, more intimate this time, punctuated only by the

whir of the tape recorder, and then a hurried cough and a

clearing of the throat.

**JONATHAN SIMS**

(hurriedly, almost

embarrassed) End

supplemental.

The tape recorder clicks off.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr.](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) Requests open.
> 
> I have a Magnus Archives discord! [Join here!](https://discord.gg/c9aZWDz)


End file.
